OSU swimmer in sync with team - but mainly as a solo attraction

In a synchronized-swimming team competition, judges look for unison and precision from eight swimmers. When Yuliya Maryanko enters the pool, all eyes are on her only.

Amy Saunders, The Columbus Dispatch

In a synchronized-swimming team competition, judges look for unison and precision from eight swimmers.

When Yuliya Maryanko enters the pool, all eyes are on her only.

The Ohio State junior specializes in the sport's solo event, in which, without teammates around her, skills must be bigger and a performance more dramatic to command the judges' attention.

At the Buckeyes' home meet on Saturday, Maryanko will begin her routine by swimming upside down for almost the length of the pool, twisting and turning the entire time without coming up for air.

The native of Kharhov, Ukraine, has captured back-to-back solo titles at U.S. Collegiate Synchronized Swimming Championships. She placed well in other events - winning the championship as part of a trio and placing second in the duet - but prefers the unusual demands of competing solo.

"You're supposed to be good at everything: super flexible, super strong, with good endurance, with good technical skills," she said. "It's like the whole package in one person."

Maryanko had competed only in team events as a member of the Ukrainian national squad. But at OSU, coaches placed her in other events because her international style differed from that of her teammates in a competition in which synchronization, obviously, matters most.

Maryanko, who is allowed to compete in three of the four events, hopes to swim alongside her teammates.

In the solo performance, coach Holly Vargo-Brown sees Maryanko overcoming her initial shyness, saying she has shown enormous growth even since winning the national championship.

"The drama that she has been able to bring in her program, the expression of movement, is 1,000 times improved," she said. "The things that are happening . . . are truly amazing."

Maryanko is grateful to compete at all, having expected that she would quit the sport to study in Ukraine. Then she looked into American universities. At Ohio State, she found the opportunity to study hospitality management and swim on a team that has won 28 national titles.When she arrived, Maryanko was a bit overwhelmed on a college campus much larger than any in her homeland.